AT&T Wireless reputation was pretty much in the dumper when they were
bought out by Cingular. AT&& Wireless knew they were being sold and
quality went way down and they sustained their customer base by giving
away the store as far as additional minutes to keep customers from leaving.

SMS wrote:
> Drew wrote:
>> This really is a disappointment to me. I had AT&T back when I had a
>> TDMA phone, and I liked their service, and at the time I liked the
>> name. However, now that AT&T and Cingular merged, I was getting quite
>> used to the Cingular name. It just fits for some reason.
>>
>> Maybe the statistics show that AT&T is a more "marketable" name, but
>> the Cingular name has come to stick. Now Cingular even has phones that
>> they call their own. Cingular 8525 for example. How are they going to
>> pull that off with the rebranding? It just doesn't sound good.
>>
>> Looks like they're just being greedy and want to swallow out all of the
>> old names, and keep the AT&T the *only* brand. Really disappointing.
>
> The Cingular name has some problems.
>
> First, it sounds too much like the asthma medication Singulair.
>
> Second, as a carrier, Cingular has a very poor reputation for quality
> and customer service as evidenced by surveys by J.D. Power, Yankee
> Group, and Consumer Reports. In the western region, where Cingular
> started out as a 1900 MHz GSM-only carrier, and never had a TDMA
> network, the reputation is absolutely horrible.
>
> No doubt the AT&T executives believe that the Cingular name has too much
> baggage associated with it, and that a name change will held shed that
> baggage.
>
> Personally I doubt the wisdom of the name change. They should fix the
> problems that cause them to get the poor ratings, rather than spending
> money on re-branding. But then I guess the AT&T execs know better than
> any of us.